


making amends

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Post-Legion Mate, Promises, Sick Aichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-24 01:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16170776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: All their problems stemmed from the fact that neither of them knew how to talk to each other. So they make a promise to try, no matter how hard.





	making amends

Kai finds himself at Aichi’s front door. It’s been only a week since they had stopped the Void and shattered the seed embedded in Aichi’s heart, but Kai hasn’t seen Aichi since; he hasn’t been to Card Capital, and Ishida says Aichi hasn’t been in school. It’s unlike him.

Emi answers the door and invites him in; he stands in the middle of the living room and waits until Emi returns, promising that Aichi is on his way down. Mrs. Sendou offers Kai tea. He accepts, just because it’s a way to ease his anxiety. She talks to him idly, about how grateful she was that Kai had blessed Aichi’s life with Vanguard, about how grateful she was that Kai had become Aichi’s first ever friend.

Kai fights down the lump in his throat and replies only with  _mm_ and  _I see._

When Aichi enters the sitting room, still in his pajamas and rubbing his eyes tiredly, he freezes at the sight of Kai, now sitting on the edge of the sofa next to Mrs. Sendou.

So Emi didn’t tell him that Kai was here.

He tries to back out of the room, but Kai sets down his tea and stands.

“Wait.”

It’s not as though there are many places for Aichi to disappear to now; he could return to his room, and Kai is now willing to follow. But what he wants to say, he doesn’t want to say in front of Mrs. Sendou or Emi. He shoves his shaking hands in his pockets.

“I… I haven’t seen you in a while,” he says carefully, hoping that Aichi picks up on the thirty layers of hidden meaning that Kai is terrible at articulating.

“I haven’t felt well,” Aichi replies, and he certainly  _looks_ ill. His eyes are shadowed, his face more pallid than normal. Whether this is the aftereffect of  _that thing that happened_ or a result of something worse, Kai doesn’t know.

Silence falls over the room like a heavy blanket until Mrs. Sendou breaks it by clearing her throat. “Emi, let’s go out and get some medicine for Aichi, hm?”

Breathing suddenly feels like sucking air in through a straw.

Emi looks between Aichi and Kai, eyebrows lifted. For the first time, Kai wonders what sorts of things Aichi says about him to his family, and whether Emi could possibly know the very things Kai wishes he did.

“Yes, okay,” she says, and the two of them gather some bags and their jackets and leave, assuring Aichi and Kai that they will return shortly.

The front door closes. Aichi sinks onto the sofa, staring intently at his hands.

“W-what are you doing here?”

Kai sits next to him, halfway on the same cushion. “I was worried. I haven’t seen you since we got back. Ishida said you haven’t been in class, either.”

Aichi nods, rubs his hands together nervously. “I’m really tired… all I’ve done is sleep and it doesn’t seem to help.”

Close up, he looks even worse. The shadows under his eyes may as well be painted on, and his lips and skin are flaking.

“Let me get you some water,” Kai offers, and Aichi doesn’t stop him from getting up and going into the kitchen for a glass of water. When he comes back, Aichi holds it between shaky hands and sips at it.

Kai slowly reaches his arm around Aichi’s shoulder; Aichi leans into him, staring blankly at the glass in his hands.

It isn’t how Kai had wanted this to go, with Aichi ill and exhausted, but he’s prepped himself for so long that if he puts it off any longer he’ll make  _himself_ sick with the anxiety.

“I’m sorry, Aichi.”

Aichi lifts his head and pulls back a little so he can see Kai’s face. “For what?”

For not being strong enough, for feeling inadequate, for giving in to the very power he detested, for hurting his friends, for hurting  _Aichi._

“For everything I did to you.”

Aichi closes his eyes and slouches heavily into Kai again. He rolls his head from side to side, sighs. “You didn’t-”

“The strain on your body from trying to hold off the Reverse almost killed you. I almost-”

His voice breaks. He swallows, blinks. His eyes burn.

“ _I_  almost killed you.”

Aichi doesn’t say anything. Kai feels the need to go on, to explain  _why_ he did what he did; Aichi knows some of it, of course, but the self-loathing embedded deep in Kai’s heart went far beyond feeling inadequate at cardfighting.

“I was afraid. I convinced myself it was because you had surpassed me in every way, but… mostly I was afraid that once you surpassed me, you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

“You know that’s not true,” Aichi murmurs.

“I didn’t. You- you meant more to me than I could even understand. The thought of you leaving me behind killed me inside. I couldn’t- I was so afraid that you wouldn’t want to be…”

Here, Kai falters.

How much of what he felt back then was he projecting onto Aichi? How much of his stupid high school crush on the boy who made him enjoy Vanguard again was to blame for his feeling of inadequacy, and how much of it was his desperate desire to remain relevant in the eyes of his peers?

Aichi struggles to straighten up. Kai instinctively holds out a hand for support. He’s surprised when Aichi sets the glass of water on the coffee table and puts his hand in Kai's.

“Kai.” Aichi’s eyes droop wearily, but he focuses his gaze on Kai’s face. “If you were so worried… you should have just said something.”

It’s the obvious answer to something that should never have been a problem. And Kai had tried, more than once, to breach the subject. But he could never articulate his feelings, and so they simmered in his heart until they finally hit the boiling point. By then, he had so convinced himself of his worthlessness and irrelevancy that he self-destructed, and took everyone with him.

“I didn’t know how to talk to you.”

Aichi smiles sadly. “I guess that’s something we both need to work on.”

He lifts his arm up and around Kai’s shoulder, face pressing into Kai’s neck. Kai moves his own arm down, around Aichi’s waist, and holds him close. He knows Aichi can feel his pulse, beating out of control.

“I was the same.” Aichi yawns. “With Psyqualia. I wanted to show you I was good enough for you. To please you. I was obsessed with you. But the thing is… that wasn’t all Psyqualia. Those were my thoughts. My desires… I wanted more than anything to be close to you.” He sighs contentedly into Kai’s neck. “Like this… just us…”

Kai’s heart skips a beat. “Aichi…?”

“Will you promise me something, Kai?”

“Y-yeah…?”

Using Kai’s shoulders as leverage, Aichi lifts himself up until they’re face to face, inches away, and Aichi’s exhaustion radiates from his body. Kai’s grip tightens on Aichi’s waist.

“Let’s promise each other… that we’ll always talk, even when it’s hard. Let's never... put each other through that again.”

Aichi’s dry lips brush Kai’s. The kiss lasts only a few seconds, but when Aichi slips away and collapses with exhaustion back onto Kai’s shoulder, Kai holds him tight and whispers “I promise.”

* * *

 

When Emi opens the door, she announces her presence to give her brother and Kai notice that they were no longer alone, but there’s no response. The house is silent.

She’s beginning to wonder if they’d gone up to Aichi’s room when she sees the back of Kai’s head slumped against the back of the sofa. She tiptoes forward and peers over the cushion.

Aichi sleeps curled up in a ball, his head on Kai’s lap. One of Kai’s hands is tucked under Aichi’s arm and holds Aichi’s chest; the other is loosely tangled in Aichi’s hair.

He’d clearly fallen asleep stroking Aichi’s hair.

She can’t stop the smile from creeping over her face.

_It’s about time, you dummies._

**Author's Note:**

> yet another kiss prompt from my twitter (rangerhitomi)... i love kaichi so much, and i'm sorry for spamming the tag lol


End file.
